The Trump campaign slammed President Joe Biden’s announcement on Tuesday that he was raising tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, calling it a “weak and futile attempt to distract” from the harm his electric vehicle mandate is doing to the United States auto industry.
Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, “Joe Biden’s action today is a weak and futile attempt to distract from the grievous harm his insane Electric Vehicle mandate is doing to the U.S. auto industry and how his radical policies are wiping out thousands of American auto jobs.”
Leavitt continued:
The fact that these tariffs do not apply to gas-powered cars and trucks but only to Chinese EVs shows that this has nothing to do with protecting American Workers. It’s all about Crooked Joe’s agenda of killing gas-powered automobiles while forcing Americans into ultra-expensive Electric Vehicles they don’t want and can’t afford.
Biden announced on Tuesday that in addition to raising tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum, he would raise tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles from 25 percent to 100 percent this year.
“A 100% tariff rate on EVs will protect American manufacturers from China’s unfair trade practices,” the White House said in a press release, adding:
This action advances President Biden’s vision of ensuring the future of the auto industry will be made in America by American workers. As part of the President’s Investing in America agenda, the Administration is incentivizing the development of a robust EV market through business tax credits for manufacturing of batteries and production of critical minerals, consumer tax credits for EV adoption, smart standards, federal investments in EV charging infrastructure, and grants to supply EV and battery manufacturing. The increase in the tariff rate on electric vehicles will protect these investments and jobs from unfairly priced Chinese imports.
Leavitt said in her statement that if Biden truly wanted to help American auto workers, he would announce he is rescinding his “ridiculous EV mandate effective immediately.”
Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency in March issued a regulation to limit the amount of pollution allowed from tailpipes to ensure that the majority of new automobiles sold in America are all-electric or hybrids by 2027.
Leavitt said:
Far from being tough on China, Joe Biden is giving Chinese companies hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer subsidies through his so-called Inflation Reduction Act. The entire Green New Scam is a Biden giveaway to Crooked Joe’s Chinese masters. Americans who want to end Biden’s betrayals and truly stand up for American Workers will vote for President Trump.
Former President Donald Trump slammed the tariffs himself earlier Tuesday in Manhattan, saying they did not go far enough.
“He wants to put a big tariff on China, which is the suggestion that I said,” Trump said. “Where have you been for three and a half years? He should have done that a long time ago.”
“They’ve also got to do it on other vehicles and other products because China’s eating our lunch right now,” he added. “It should have been done three and a half years ago. I did and I started it and then [the Biden administration] started playing games and it was very bad, very bad for the auto industry.”
“In Michigan, the auto industry is doing very poorly because jobs are starting to leave. They are losing [because of] the electric vehicle mandate,” he said.
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